Chicago White Sox

QUOTE (Tex @ Mar 14, 2015 -> 08:04 AM) I was happy to see the punishment was swift. I do have some empathy for what Rock hinted at earlier. The innocent guys who were not involved that were thrown out of their house and are labeled as racist for belonging to that fraternity. Maybe it is deserved, but I never have supported a blanket condemnation of everyone and punishing innocent people. Expel all the people you catch singing, investigate and nail every one of the morons you can, but the innocent people shouldn't be punished. People should be judged by their actions. I also wish we could eliminate n***** from our vocabularies. I especially dislike the current culture that n***er is bad but somehow n***a is ok for some people to say. Many of us older people still hear that as a ugly and violent word of hatred, no matter how you try and hide it. We also have a culture where we cheerfully accept violence when we are watching tv and movies, singing songs, or playing video games. Singing about murdering people by hanging = bad. Cheering as you murder people by shooting in a game = acceptable. There are way more than a dozen people singing narco-corridos which depict the same kinds of acts, and they are tolerated and even celebrated. Gansta rap basically falls into the same line as narco corridos. Violence against people. But if there is big money to be earned or entertainment value for the masses it is accepted. Instead we stop at rooting out a small group of people in Oklahoma and think we've actually done something important to stop this. The problem is bigger and needs to be addressed. Yup, we need to focus on the bigger problems like rap music and video games. Those are the things that are really bringing society down. Definitely not dumb, hate-filled people, it's Call of Duty & Jay-Z that should be blamed here.

QUOTE (LDF @ Mar 13, 2015 -> 05:53 PM) i really hate to say this, but i think no matter what, MJ will not make the team this yr. i think the sox FO wants him to work on his defense in the minors, less stress if he makes an error. You think Micah Johnson has no chance of making the team? Honestly, I would be shocked if he's not the opening day 2B.

I have no idea what Dick Allen is actually arguing, but what could have been an interesting thread now sucks.

As much as I think Taylor is a nobody, this makes the decision to sign Beckham over a legit 4th OF like Denorfia even more frustrating. We literally have no OF depth and if a starter goes down we're pretty much f***ed. Meanwhile, one of Sanchez & Saladino could fill Beckham's role without missing a beat IMO. Hopefully there's something I'm missing about J.B. Schuck.

Why does Micah Johnson need to be a 2 to 3 WAR player to warrant the 2B job when you think Sanchez is a 1 WAR player? If their performances are going to be even remotely similar, then you're better off giving the everyday at-bats to the guy who has a chance of being a long-term solution at the position. I think the vast majority of front office types & scouts would agree that guy is Micah.

With three off days in the first 11 days of the season, we really don't need a 5th starter. Assuming Sale is out, each guy gets two starts and they would all be pitching on five days rest in their third starts. Hopefully Sale is back by the 17th though, because we then hit a stretch of 17 games in 17 days (assuming no rainouts). It's after this stretch I would target a possible Rodon call-up. At this point, Hahn and the coaching staff would have five starts to evaluate Danks & Noesi on and four/five AAA starts to evaluate Rodon on. And more importantly, we'd be about a week past the service time deadline. I'll straight up say I disagree with Balta on the need to baby Rodon throughout the season. His issues in college last year were due to extremely high pitch counts, not because he pitched a ton of innings. If he's a better option than Danks or Noesi, then he needs to be in the rotation as soon as possible as long as we don't lose the extra year of service time. I don't really care if he can only give us 20 or so starts. Take those starts from May to August and then shut him down or move him to the bullpen the rest of the way. There is no reason for this skip a start nonsense Balta is proposing. We need Rodon this year to help keep us in the race while see how this team takes shape. There's no need to f*** around with the rest of the rotation in hopes of getting a few starts from him in September. Again, take your 20 starts from Carlos and call it a day. Those starts from May to July are ultimately just as important (if not more) in terms of making the playoffs. And the good thing is if we need to add a starter, at least we'll have a better idea if we're a legit contender.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Mar 6, 2015 -> 11:55 AM) I respectfully suggest that you are reading too much into this line up considering it's the third game of spring training. Beckham hit second lots of times in his tenure with the Sox. Davidson is a candidate at some point for the Sox at 3B and Beckham is considered a super sub (2B, SS and 3B) Plus Gordon is at 2B in this game and is a legitimate contender for that position with Johnson and Sanchez. Are you Hawk?

QUOTE (raBBit @ Mar 3, 2015 -> 04:37 PM) Hahn has said this plenty of times so this is my thought as well. Honestly, if Soto is healthy he could steal a lot of playing time from Flowers, especially if Tyler doesn't put a .355 BABIP again.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Mar 3, 2015 -> 10:34 PM) Everyone, including ZIPS (the machine that it is) saw Sanchez last year. Isn't likely to hit much more than 250/290/350 but he's a slick glove guy metrics and scouts both saw that. We saw it, dude has serious range and a solid arm at 2B. Micah is likely to be a poor fielder even if he's better offensively. I don't like that trade off on this team. What makes you think Micah is likely to be a poor fielder? And how does ZIPS value defense for a rookie with zero games played in the majors?

QUOTE (raBBit @ Mar 3, 2015 -> 04:36 PM) Looking at tomorrows lineup, which is very likely a regular season lineup we'll see against LHP, it's kind of sad to see that some ugly bottom third from last year. Beckham-Flowers-Sanchez has minimal offensive upside. If Micah gets the job and can get on base at a ~33% clip I want him batting lead off. Every time he gets on base he'll get plenty of chances to run with Eaton typically seeing plenty of pitches. The brain trust really seems to love the prospect of Melky hitting second and I understand why but I worry the team, as currently constructed, will be a little too top heavy. I hope they're flexible enough to hit Melky #5 or #6. Especially if Avi Garcia doesn't set the world on fire which is a very real possibility. I know a lot of advanced metrics say you should have your best hitter hitting second but I think we have guys with speed/bat control that could benefit from having speed on base in front of them. Essentially, Eaton should always be #1 or #2 and some mix of Melky, Micah and Bonifacio should make up the other hitter. I agree with everything you say here, but I think for 2015 at least Micah should bat 9th. First, I see his OBP closer to .300 than .330 given a typical rookie adjustment period, which is too low to bat in either of the two spots directly in front of Abreu IMO. Especially when we have two relatively high OBP guys in Eaton & Melky as alternative for those spots. Second, I want him to have the green light at all times and until he refines his technique/strategy against major league pitchers & catchers, it's better to limit the amount of outs he makes on the base-paths while Abreu is at the plate.

I love the idea of Micah batting 9th this season. If he can get on-base at even a halfway decent clip, he's going to score a f***ton of runs with Eaton & Melky batting directly after him. Hopefully he wins the 2B job, because he'll be fun as hell to watch.

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Mar 2, 2015 -> 05:18 PM) Still hope we hold him back, even if he's ready. What is it, a month for a full extra year of service? More like two weeks. It would be really, really stupid not finding a way to keep him down for a couple of weeks to start the season. Hell, we really don't even need a 5th starter for the first two weeks due to off days. Even with the Sale injury, I see no reason Rodon would be needed short of another injury.

100% hoping that Micah wins the 2B job. I really like Carlos, but he projects much better as a reserve infielder. If I'm going to give everyday at-bats to a prospect in a season I'm serious about winning, then I definitely want it to be a guy who can possibly be the long-term answer at the position. Unfortunately, Sanchez's upside is pretty limited offensively IMO. I actually think a lot of people are sleeping on Micah. He might of had some struggles along the way, but the Sox pushed him through four levels over the past two years. And yes, I know he was a college draftee, but he missed half of his junior season due to an elbow injury. The fact is the Sox have been fairly aggressive with him and despite that he's had a couple stretches of dominance. His AA performance in particular was quite impressive and sold me on him as legit prospect. If healthy, and that's the biggest concern IMO, he can be a dynamic offensive player. Defensively he needs some work, but playing everyday with Alexei and working with the major league coaching staff might be good for his development.

QUOTE (danman31 @ Feb 23, 2015 -> 01:20 AM) Maybe I'm in the minority, but I actually really liked The Order. I can see some of the complaints people had with the early game being a bit slow and not a ton of gameplay, but I had fun with it. I think it breaks down into two camps. If you're one of those people who doesn't care about the story in games and skips cut scenes, then stay far clear of this game. If you think of cut scenes as a sort of reward for beating a section of gameplay and don't mind watching the story unfold for a few minutes in between gameplay sections, then you'll probably enjoy this game. It's gorgeous, the world they created with the knights is cool, I enjoyed the story, the science weapons they made up are super fun. The gameplay is fairly average for a third-person cover shooter, but nothing egregious. There's a s***load of quick time events, which I normally can't stand, but this game's weren't annoying. I can see why a lot of people weren't thrilled with it (although there are very few bad reviews, simply average/ok ones), but I enjoyed it. It's not five hours long like leaked on the internet, you'd have to sprint through the game to pull that off, but it's shorter than an Uncharted game for example. If you're worried about it, get it for $20 at some point down the road and it will give you a good weekend. I actually enjoy story-driven games, even if they lack traditional gameplay. Heavy Rain would be a perfect example of such a title. And honestly I'm cool with shorter length games, but I can't justify paying $60 for a 5 hour experience. Glad to hear it's a bit longer and that the story/setting is as good as advertised. Like you said, probably worth a shot if it's $30 or less, which is likely in a couple of months.

Regarding Rodon and service time, a full year is considered 172 days. Given that a major league season is 180+ days, you simply need to wait two weeks or so before calling up the player to get that extra year of control.

The only way Shark is getting 5/$140M in free agency is if he's a Cy Young caliber pitcher this year. Very dissapointing to find out he's completely delusional about his own self worth. No way we extend him anytime soon if he's looking for $28M a year.

Wow, IGN gave The Order quite a dissapointing review. Definitely will be passing on that game now.

I think saying Micah has limited upside is pretty foolish. He's got 80 speed and shown enough plate discipline to suggest he can be an impact leadoff hitter. Defensively, he's got the tools to be above average. Obviously he needs to put it all together, but if he does the ceiling is pretty high. Unfortunately, people evaluating him rely too heavily on his AAA stats, which are likely deflated due to him adjusting to the level while having hamstring injuries.

I'm surprised the Melky Cabrera deal has gotten no love. IMO, it's one of the few non-Cuban deals that is likely to provide surplus value over the life of the contract. Plus by all accounts he's a great clubhouse guy. I personally think it was a better signing than the LaRoche deal, which seems to be getting a lot of praise.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Feb 15, 2015 -> 01:57 PM) LOL. Good rebuttal. Why don't you remind us all how Hawk really wasn't that bad of a GM again? Clearly you have no agenda here.

QUOTE (Tex @ Feb 15, 2015 -> 10:48 AM) While I may tip the scale in one direction or the other, blaming one person 100% brings another "come on man" kind of comment. Stone has some blame as well. We can discuss if it is 10% or 50%. But you can't allow Stone to skip with zero blame. You're right, Stone should tell Hawk to STFU once and a while, so let's blame Steve for about 10% of this mess.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Feb 15, 2015 -> 07:29 AM) What I don't understand, and I do think they do get along better these days, is why 99% of people think if Hawk and Steve aren't getting along, it is Hawk's fault. If one were to interact with each of them seperately just as Joe Fan, it would be 100% the other way. If you ever run into Hawk on the street or at a hotel or something, the guy couldn't be more pleasant. Stone, let's just say he acts like they will be renaming the Cy Young award the Steve Stone award fairly soon. Come on man, Steve Stone may be a complete asshole outside the booth, but Hawk is 100% to blame for their awful in-game chemistry. He's constantly talking over Steve and doesn't allow for different opinions/perspectives from his own, which is a shame because Stone has intelligent viewpoints he could be sharing those watching. We get you like Hawk a lot, but let's not ignore reality here. At this point in his career, Hawk is nearly impossible to work with unless you pair him with a parrot that will just agree with everything he says. I can't see Stone staying with the Sox after his contract ends and frankly I don't blame him.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 14, 2015 -> 10:50 AM) If you're given the choice between that and having your spouse no longer be able to see a doctor, isn't the choice obvious? Um, the rest of us have jobs too. Many of us rely on cars and therefore gasoline to get to these to jobs and provide for our families. But I get it, it's ok for you to sacrifice your moral highground when it's your family at stake, but the rest of us are clearly monsters who support beaheadings when we fill up our gas tanks. Again, please scrap the ridiculous holier-than-thou act.

Let me get this straight, Balta has accused everyone that uses gas/oil of somehow supporting beheadings, but at the same recently admitted to applying for a job at Penn f***ing State, an institution that enabled a child molester for years and still views one of those enablers as sacred. Talk about some holier-than-thou bulls*** right there.

QUOTE (Reddy @ Feb 8, 2015 -> 05:26 PM) You're right. Your opinion is most certainly more accurate than unbiased statistics. Are you familiar with BABIP? I guess GMs must not use these "unbiased statistics", because you think one of them would have given Ronald a major league job if he was simply unlucky last year.